Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-07-23
inOM DUNGEON TO PALACE.
TIE Dungeon From Which Paul Went to
His Death Described.
The Time of My Departure Is At
Hand.
I III Tied to the Martyrs Pillar at the
Acquae Saliva.
Y la the Beautiful Palace is Supposed to
Be Like.
Thy 0ompanionship With Christ What
Thv gompanionship With Christi What
Shall We Say Pirst2
FROM DUNGEON TO PALACE.

The HAMProNs, July 10.-The
Brooklyn tabernacle being closed for
enlargement, the Rev. T. Dewitt Tai
mage, ID. d., pastor, spends his first
Sabbath away from his flock the pres
emit season, AT tins summer home. His
subject for to-day was: "From Dun
geon to Palace" and his text:
eThe time OF my departure is at hand"
Timothy fv., 8.
The way out Of this world is blocked
up with ceffin and hearse, and under
takers spade and screw-driver, that
the christian can hardly think as he
ought Of the most cheerful passage in
all his history. We hang black in
stead of white over the place where the
good man gets his last victory. We
stand weeping over q heap of chains
which the freed soul has shaken off,
and we say: Poor man! What a
pity it was he had To come to this!'
Come to what? BY this time the peo-
pie have assembled at the obsequies.
that man has bsen three days SO happy
that all the joy of earth accumulated
would be wretchedness beside it, and
h might better weep over you because
a have to stay, than you weep over
D. IN because he has To 90. 1t is IA
f.rtunate thing that II good man does
~ Lave to wait to see his w obse-
quies. they would be so discordant
with his experience. II the Israelites
should go back to Egypt and our
over the brick kilns they acc left, they
would not be any more silly than that
christian who should forsake heaven
and come down and mourn because
he had to leave this world. Our ideas
of the christians death are morbid and
sickly. We look upon it as a dark
hole in which a man stumbles when
his breath gives out. This whole sub
ect is odorous with varnish and disin-
f~ectants, instead of being sweet with
mignon 'tte. Paul, in my text, takes
that great clod of a world "death,"
and throws it away, and speaks of his
''departure''-a beautiful, bright, sug-
gestive description of every Christians
release.
PAUL's EARTHLY DWELLING PLACE.
Now, departure implies u starting
place of destination. When Paul left
this world, what was the starting
point? 1t was a scene OF great physi-
oal distress. 1t was the Tullianum, the
lower dungeon of the Mamertine prison.
The top dungeon vas bad enough it hav-
ing no mean of ingress or egress but
through an opening IN the top. Through
that The prisoner was lowered, and
through that came oll the food and air
and light received. II was a terrible
place, that upper dungeon; but the
Tullianum was the lower dungeon, and
that was still more wretched, the only
light and the only air coming through
the roof, and that roof the floor of the
upper dungeon. That was Paul's last
earthly residence. 1t was a dungeon
ust six feet and a half high. 1t was a
doleful place. 1t had the chill of long
centuries of dampness. 1t was filthy
with the long incarcerations of misera-
BILE wretches. 1t was there hat Paul
spent his last days on earth, and it is
here that / see him to-day, in the fear
full dungeon, shivering, blue with the
cold, waiting for that old Overcoat
which he had sent for up to Troas,
and which they had not yet sent down, |
Notwithstanding he had written for it.
If some skillful surgeon should go
into that dungeon where Paul IS incar.
cerated, we might find out what are
the prospects of Paul's living through
the rough imprisonment. In the first
place, he is an old man, only two years
short of seventy. At that very time
when he most needs the warmth and
the sunlight and the fresh air, he is
shu. Il from the sur VIVA, are .ho.c
scars on his anklesp Why those we.r
gotten when he was fast, his feet in I'll
stocks. Every time he turned the ilesi
on his ankles started. What are those
scars on his back? You know be was
whipped five times, each time getting
thirty-nine strokes-nne hundred and
ninety-fve bruises on the hack Count
them!) made by the Jews with rods Of
elul-wood, each one ofthe IN hundred
and ninety-liye strokes bringing the |
blood. Look at Paul's face and loob
at his arms. Where did he get those